Nigon
by El Angel Caido
Summary: Their hearts were tied to each other, and one could not beat without the other.


**Nigon**

El Angel Caido

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

-

He smiles when she enters the room. It's something he can never seem to keep himself from doing whenever she's around. Her scent, her hair, her face; the way she smiles as she walks towards him; everything about her just makes him so happy.

She looks lovely today. He's not sure if the color of the dress she's wearing is pink or what she calls coral, but it doesn't matter. He knows that it suits her anyway, because she's beautiful whatever she wears. Today she's in a long beach dress that leaves her creamy shoulders bare for him to see but hides her long legs under the soft fabric that gently sweeps the floor as she walks to him. Her soft golden hair hangs loosely, just like she always wears it, but she had tucked a fresh hyacinth behind her ear. He thought she looked just like a tropic goddess.

"Ino."

He says her name before he gently takes her hand into his and guides her to the dinner table he had just left. He pulls the chair and smiles as he bids her to sit down. He closes his eyes as he gives her a quick but soft kiss on the forehead before he goes back to his seat across the table from her. For a long time he just looks at the beauty in front of him, happily lost looking at her blue eyes.

He starts telling her about his day. It was quite boring, he says, staying in his office all day and tending to those papers that the Hokage wanted him to finish before the weekend. He wasn't really looking forward to looking at plan scrolls the whole day, he says, but since the Hokage told him that he could take the weekend off if he could have those papers by her table before tomorrow, he spent the whole day with his nose buried in the papers. Tomorrow morning he'll get them done and then they could spend the weekend together.

"We can go to the meadows. You can tend to your flowers and I can watch the clouds, just like we used to do when we were genin. You'd like that, won't you?"

She listens interestedly to everything he says, nodding along and offering support in the right places. Just like now. Then he asks about her day, and she tells him that her favorite flowers have begun growing buds again, just in time for spring. She says the buds are still small now, but she promises to give him the first bloom. He smiles and tells her that he's looking forward to that. More than lying on the grass and watching clouds go by, he loves to sit still and listen to her voice; it sounds like music to him, and it feels like an angel's touch.

They continue their talk and soon he finishes his meal, but he notices that hers remain untouched. He asks why she hasn't eaten hers yet, if everything's alright, but she only smiles. Everything's okay, she says. She's just not hungry. He believes everything she says and kids that she must be on diet again.

"You know I love you whatever your waist line is, right?"

She laughs and says that he shouldn't worry because she does. It's just that Sakura treated her to a meal not too long ago. He asks if she'd like to do anything, like to take a stroll outside or visit Asuma, but she shakes her head and says she's a bit tired from the hospital rounds she did this afternoon and she'd rather just stay here and be with him.

He smiles at her.

"I love you," he says, and he knows that there is nothing more in this world that could be more true. She completes him and makes him whole. Her touch mends everything that is broken and her and her laughter fills every void. Whenever she's around he feels like he doesn't need anything, doesn't need anyone else. He had never felt so complete before.

She smiles back at him and says that she loves him too. He knows that she's telling the truth, and he thanks God for giving her to him.

As long as he has her beside him, everything is alright.

Everything is perfect.

Everything is like it should be.

-

He watches from the doorway to his best friend's room, and what he sees breaks his heart. It hurts so much that sometimes he wishes he wouldn't see it at all so he doesn't have to cry when he goes home. The past is past and there is nothing that can be done to bring it back, he says. No amount of pain, hurt or tears could undo what has been done.

He doesn't know why he keeps coming back here. It's actually better that he make peace with the past so he could finally move on and start a new life for himself. But he can't, and that's all he knows. Maybe it's because of the fact that whatever happens, he knows that Nara Shikamaru is still his best friend and Yamanaka Ino is still the only woman he will ever love.

And together, they are still Team Ten.

"Ino."

He hears him say her name, the name that he himself has not spoken in about two years. He feels his chest tighten with pain and longing. He has tried countless times to say it, that simple three-letter name that meant so much to him and to so many other people, but he just could not. It hurt way too much. Again he reminds himself that life had made its course and there was nothing he could do, no matter how much he wished that it wasn't true.

"Chouji."

The pink-haired woman in the white medical coat softly says his name as she joins him watching the room. He looks at her, and she sees that his eyes are glazed with tears.

"Sakura… I…"

He doesn't finish what he wants to say because the ache in his chest is too painful to bear. Team Ten was a friendship that he thought of as the most important thing in his life, even more important than his own. He was ready to do anything for it. Including sacrificing his own happiness for Shikamaru and Ino's happiness. In the end, why was it like this?

He remembers what happened the day after the event that changed their life. Inside he was hurting like nothing he had ever experienced before, but he tried to be strong for the friendship that meant everything to him. He had tried to reach out to Shikamaru, but he wouldn't listen to anyone anymore. All he wanted to do was stay beside Ino.

Sakura said that this was better for him, but Chouji wasn't sure. He wouldn't want this…he would have preferred the truth and somehow he thought that Shikamaru would too.

On the other hand, the truth is often painful.

He swallows as he desperately gets the words out of his mouth. "G-gen…genjutsu?"

The medic smiles sadly. "Let him stay there, Chouji…he's happy there, he's loved there. Outside it…he'll break," she says.

He knew that she was right. Shikamaru loved Ino, loved her more than anything else and loved her more than anyone else did. Their hearts were tied to each other, and one could not beat without the other. He could survive without anything else – but her.

"H-how long…are you keeping him like this?" he asks.

"Until the time comes when they could be together again."

The troubled grey clouds continued to stir in the skies, and the first drops of rain came with the first drops of tears that streamed from his eyes. He wants to call her and tell her that they wanted her back, but he still can't say her name because he knows that she will never be able to answer back, and she will never be able to come back. She is with Asuma now, perhaps watching them from above, and that was all that they would ever be able to do until the day fate would allow Team Ten to be together again.

With one last look at Nara Shikamaru sitting alone by the table, an empty chair and an uneaten meal across him, Akimichi Chouji leaves.


End file.
